Food is tasty. Food is delicious. Food is what we schedule our routine, schedules, and events around because we all love food. The best part is it’s always there for us when we need something to do. Eating can be so easy. In addition to having various options for the different types of food, the food is available nearly 24/7 or if the restaurant is closed then you could probably just go to Walmart and find the food you are craving there since this store is open 24/7. Yes, food does have ups and downs, but overall people are extremely grateful for the ability to have wonderful food in America. However, specifically for me, this summer I ate a lot of my favorite foods which either my mom or I cooked, or we went out to a restaurant. After taking pictures of the multiple food items, I noticed most if not all of these foods definitely included cheese somehow in the dish. The realization made me question if this is a trend in the way I prefer food, which is interesting because I’ve never thought about any trends before in my food habits. It is true I definitely prefer my mom’s home cooking rather than restaurant food because the feeling of being home and not having to spend the extra money for the food and then the planned out time to get there, eat the dinner, and drive back is an abundance of effort when rather you can eat a really good home cooked meal on your couch watching tv. So the concept of staying home and cooking the meal with your loved ones sounds much better to me most nights than expending the extra resources for a restaurant setting.
It is amazing to step back and realize how much we are so focused, so narrowed in on food, and how it changes our whole being if we do not get the food. This happens with me for sure because after a certain number of hours and I don’t have something to eat that’s filling or enough protein then I get headaches and feel irritable. Food has incredible effects on a human’s mind and body in general. The days when I didn’t have the proper nutrients or enough protein, I could tell a difference between those days and the others in which I did have the three meals a day. There were also days when I would only have certain foods with only a few macronutrients such as bread or cheese resulting in lower quality per se days. The days I consumed caffeine such as chai tea lattes or mochas I felt more productive and energetic which helped me run errands or focus while reading. What a person eats does affect their actions.
From omelettes to pizza, from queso at Fuego’s to burritos at Cabo Bob’s, from burgers to broccoli and cheddar soup, my summer diet consisted of variety. The food I ate was my favorite because I felt so at home. Especially with knowing I was going away for the semester, I just wanted to spend the summer with my family and friends and eating was simple to centralize it around. Having those home cooked dinners of pasta or tacos, my mom always cooked well and our dinners were one of my favorites things. The pasta consisted of either spaghetti, farfalle (bowtie), rigatoni, or macaroni. It would be pasta with meat sauce, caesar salad, and garlic bread. My family has some Italian background so we tend to have pasta quite often for home meals. This was most likely my favorite meal because I love eating all kinds of pasta. Taco dinners were also frequently served in the Esparza household; my mom would set up it as an get as much as you want or as much as your plate could hold at once type of dinner. There would be beans, rice, lettuce, cheese, taco meat, salsa, hard taco shells, flour tortillas, and chips & queso to go along with the tacos. The whole meal was another one of my favorites. One of the best parts about making the meals at home was knowing exactly what was going into the food. Being able to control the food, how it’s cooked, what seasoning is used, or what it is paired with can be one of the most helpful parts of the meal. Everyone has those meals at the restaurants when they order the steak because it always looks good, but then the plate comes out and it’s covered in the odd-looking mushroom sauce with asparagus as the side item; and the meal was almost ruined since you didn’t know it was going to look like that, however the taste of the steak is the only thing that saved you from wasting the $19 spent on the single dish. Cooking your own food also allows you to have food at all times of the day and night as long as you’re at your house. A comforting feeling also comes along when you are cooking at home since you can claim it, you made this food, and it is yours from your hard work and your accomplishments. The reassuring feeling of having food readily available is something we have all grown up with and almost need that specific feeling. I never realized the ease of food availability and mealtimes at home or just anywhere in Texas, or in the United States. Growing up with this type of environment and culture, we are programmed with expectations and standards for other places. It’s a difficult standard and wall to break down when given other situations than what we are comfortable with.
The food centered around my summer diet provided me with insight on how I’ve been eating for the past twenty years. It was humbling at some points. The way I eat, the type of food I choose to eat, who I eat with, and where I eat have all been learned behaviors from my family’s and other friends’ cultures. This is nearly one of the most globalized daily activities we all participate in without even thinking twice. The ability to have a fantastic steak taco with some of the best queso at 2 a.m. with some of my closest friends in my hometown is what the summer encompassed entirely. It is late night food runs or even whenever we were hungry that make the bonding, and connections between friends and family stronger. The happy hour at Sonic is one of the times of the day my mom and I bond over because if I’m out doing errands and check the time, see it’s during happy hour, then I’ll drive over there and pick up two drinks, one for me and the other for my mom. It is a nice gesture I like to do to show my mom some appreciation for what she does for me everyday; I believe it’s a considerate and simple way to understand how the food and drinks we consume enhance our relationships between one another.
Throughout the summer, I can easily say I ate both healthy and unhealthy food. The kinds of food I consumed consisted mainly of my favorite foods such as pasta, fruit, pizza, tacos, queso, omelettes, pancakes, pork, steak, and broccoli & cheddar soup with a bread bowl. My mom’s home cooked meals overruled some of the restaurants I went to for some food, but when the feeling of not wanting to wash dishes is present, it is much easier to have someone else do the work. It entertained me to see how my meal times were inconsistent most days since I did not have much of a schedule thus giving me flexibility in my food menu. Overall, I thoroughly following and examining the food over the summer I consumed because I had never done such a task before and I plan to take more interest in the concepts of the convenience of food as a whole as well as how the meal times affect our eating habits especially with this past summer as baseline data.
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